Program Description

Dear
Colleagues,

We are very pleased to invite you to participate as an
NEH Summer Scholar in a four-week Institute on “Empires and Interactions across
the Early Modern World, 1400-1800” at Saint Louis University in St. Louis,
Missouri, from June 3 to June 28, 2013. The Institute offers twenty-five NEH Summer
Scholars the opportunity to immerse themselves in the extraordinary age of
empire building and the interactions these empires fostered around the world.

The emergence of powerful empires across Eurasia set
in motion processes of exchange that reached across all continents except
Antarctica, inaugurating a new era in world history characterized by
cross-cultural contact among peoples from around the globe. Not only did a
handful of European nations carve out maritime outposts and colonies, but a
number of Asian states also established hegemony over vast tracts of land. All
this empire-building led to the expansion of long-distance commerce, the
worldwide spread of disease, animals, and plants, the globalization of Islam,
Christianity, and Judaism, and new episodes of intellectual exchange. Participants
will interact with leading scholars in these fields, engage
in analysis of theoretical approaches and primary documents, visit special
collections and museums from the period, conduct independent research, and
develop curricula and materials for classroom use.

Historians employing the methods of comparative world
history have recently demonstrated the significance of large-scale interactions
between societies in driving historical change even in pre-modern times. This
innovative interdisciplinary approach has formed one of the most important
advances in historical scholarship in the last twenty years. Drawing from this
scholarship, “Empires and Interactions” puts forth encounters between societies
as a framework for understanding the period as a whole and then uses organizing
themes to illustrate its application in concrete historical developments:
long-distance trade, biological exchange, missionary endeavor, and
intellectual interchange.

The Institute addresses a primary difficulty in
acquiring teaching expertise in courses with a substantial global dimension,
namely gaining an initial facility with new methods, problems, debates, and
sources. The discipline of world history has emerged fairly recently; thus many
college and university teachers who must master a world history curriculum often
find themselves in need of additional training in methodological issues that
have defined the field. “Empires and Interactions” aims to help fill this need
and do so by modeling the collaborative nature of world historical scholarship.
The academic specialties of the project co-directors, Ahmet Karamustafa and
Charles Parker, cover Asia and Europe, respectively. Shared expertise provides
a broad base of knowledge and balanced representation for sessions involving
discussion and dialogue. Your fellow NEH Summer Scholars will come from
different fields, possess distinct interests, and offer their own insights, all
of which will enrich the experience for everyone. Furthermore, the nine guest
historians making presentations and leading discussions are all widely
acclaimed scholars and form a central component of the Institute.

Structure of the Institute

In addition to presentations and discussions, we will
also set aside at least one morning each week for an informal conversation
among participants and co-directors to synthesize material in the previous
sessions and to discuss course projects. Participants will also have several
days to conduct independent research over the course of the Institute. In the
final week, we will restrict the presentations to two lectures in order to give
participants additional time to work on their projects (see the Detailed
Schedule on this website for more information).

The morning sessions of the Institute will begin at
9:00 and end at 12:30; the afternoon sessions will run from 2:00 to 4:00. We
will encourage everyone to make use of time after the afternoon session or evenings
to work on their projects and to read around issues of interest that pertain to
the Institute. Pius XII Memorial Library at Saint Louis University has a robust
collection of materials in early modern history and remains open in the summer
from 7:30 am to 9:00 pm Monday through Thursday, 7:30 am to 6:00 pm on Friday,
and 10:00 am to 6:00 pm on weekends.

During the course of the four weeks, NEH Summer Scholars
will work toward completing a project that will enable them to develop teaching
expertise and/or a curriculum from a range of topics within the thematic framework
of the Institute. Scholars will determine the nature of their own projects,
based on their perception of their teaching needs.The design of a project might take several
forms, such as a syllabus for a new course, a substantially revised syllabus,
an extended analysis of a particular topic in the field, or a bibliographic
essay on relevant works. At various points during the Institute, we will
designate time for NEH Scholars to discuss their projects. The co-directors and
guest lecturers will make themselves available to consult with members of the
Institute. In the evenings, we will arrange opportunities for participants to
interact with the guest lecturers informally. In the final two days, everyone
will present their projects to the entire group and we will offer a general synthesis
of the Institute. We will publish participants’ projects on the Institute’s
website.

The ultimate goal is for everyone to return to their
campuses recharged with new perspectives and strategies to infuse new life into
their world history courses. Since you will have been exposed to some of the
most creative scholars in early modern history, we hope that the Institute will
also inspire new research programs.

Unit One:
Theories: Empires and Early Modernity (June 3-June
6)

The first unit will open the door to some of the most
fundamental issues about historical interpretation on a global scale and give
participants a better appreciation for the intellectual commitments that have
shaped the grand historical narratives. Thus at the outset, members of the
Institute will gain the necessary theoretical background for the subsequent
thematic topics. (see full reading list and supplemental bibliography)

Central Questions

How can historians take the
world as a unit of historical analysis?

How have empires functioned as
engines of change and interaction?

How well does the periodization
“early modern” work for world history?

The second unit will turn to the major theatres of
empire building in the early modern world: the Asian landmass and the Atlantic
basin. In both of these theatres, economies of scale pushed commodities and
luxury items over long distances and contributed to greater cultural
integration of world regions. The Institute will explore the commonalities and
distinctions in state formation, imperial expansion, and economic development.

Central Questions

How did Asian and European
empires manage regimes and assimilate peoples?

How did empire building reshape
commerce, agriculture, and industry around the world?

What were the features of early
modern global economies?

Representative Readings

Adas, Michael. “Imperialism and
Colonialism in Comparative Perspective.” The
International History Review 2(1998), 371-388.

Field trip to the Jefferson
Memorial National Expansion Museum to explore aspects of the French Empire in
the St. Louis region.

Unit Three:
Religious and Biological Interactions (June 17-21)

The third unit explores two powerful consequences of
imperial expansion throughout the early modern world: missionary enterprise and
biological exchanges. Empire building and aggressive proselytization enabled Islam
and Christianity to emerge as global religions in the early modern period. The
global spread of plants and animals transformed ecosystems and enabled the
world’s population to double from 1500 to 1800, despite devastating
epidemiological disasters.

Central Questions

What were the cross-cultural
currents in early modern Islam and Christianity?

What similar problems and
issues did Christian and Muslim proselytizers encounter in new lands?

How did the movement of plants
and animals transform landscapes around the world?

Representative Readings

Scheper Hughes, Jennifer. “The
Cristo comes to Life: Lived Religion in Colonial Mexico,” in Biography of a Mexican Crucifix: Lived
Religion and Local Faith from the Conquest to the Present (Oxford, 2010),
83-106.

McCann, James. “Seeds of
subversion in two peasant empires,” in
Maize and Grace: Africa’s encounter with a New World Crop (Harvard, 2005),
59-93.

Features

Presentations, discussions, and
interactions with Richard Bulliet, Simon Ditchfield, and W. George Lovell

Field trip to the Bernard
Becker Medical Library at Washington University in St. Louis to examine rare
book collection on disease and medicine in Renaissance Europe.

Unit Four: Theme
3: Ideas and Connections (June 24-28)

The fourth unit will consider the transmission of
knowledge across cultural boundaries by examining several branches of learning
from cartography to astronomy and art. Europeans and Asians borrowed from one
another in remarkable ways complicating notions of “east” and “west.” NEH
Summer Scholars will complete and present their projects on the final two days.

Central Questions

How did Asian learning
contribute to scientific development in Europe?

How did European learning
influence scientific approaches in Asia?

How did Europeans and Chinese
interact on questions of social order, gender roles, and visions oflife?

Representative Readings

Harris, Steven J. Mapping Jesuit Science. The Role of Travel
in the Geography of Knowledge, in The
Jesuits. Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540–1773, eds., John W. O'Malley et al (1999), 212–240.

Ricci, Matteo S. True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven
(excerpts).

Extract of Two Letters from the Missionary Jesuits, concerning the
Discovery of the New Philippines-Islands, with a Map of the Same, in Philosophical
Transactions XXVI(1708).

Features

Presentations, discussions, and
interactions with Ulrike Strasser

Presentation and discussion of
participants’ projects.

Co-directors

Ahmet T. Karamustafa is
Professor of History at the University of Maryland, College Park. His expertise
is in social and intellectual history of medieval and early modern Islam in the
Middle East and Southwest Asia. He is the author of three books, one co-edited
volume, and many articles and essays. His most recent book,Sufism: The Formative Period, California, 2007), has established Karamustafa as one of the
leading scholars of medieval and early modern Sufism. He has taught courses at the graduate and
undergraduate level in History, Religious Studies as well as Jewish, Islamic
and Near Eastern Studies. He has also held several administrative positions,
including a five-year term as director of the Religious Studies Program at
Washington University in St. Louis. From 2008 to 2011, he served as the
co-chair of the Study of Islam Section at the American Academy of Religion.

Charles Parker is the Eugene A. Hotfelder Professor in
the Humanities and Professor of History at Saint Louis University, where he has
taught since 1994. He is the author of three books, two co-edited volumes and
numerous articles and essays. Trained in the history of early modern Europe,
Parker has expanded his research focus in recent years to explore global patterns
of exchange during this period. His latest book, Global Interactions in the Early Modern Age, 1400-1800 (Cambridge,
2010) reflects this emphasis. He has taught world history regularly over the
past fifteen years in a variety of formats. A guest lecturer at a 2007 NEH Summer
Institute at Calvin College, Parker received a NEH Fellowship for 2010-2011 to
undertake a comparative study of Calvinist communities outside of Europe from
1600 to 1800.

Institute
Faculty

Timothy Parsons is Professor
of History and African and African American Studies, as well as the Director of
the International and Area Studies Program at Washington University in St.
Louis.

Laura Hostetler is Professor and Chair in the
Department of History at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

Molly Greene is Professor and Associate Chair of
History as well as the Acting Director of the Hellenic Studies Program at
Princeton University.

Rudi Matthee is the Munroe Chair of History at the
University of Delaware.

Carla Rahn Phillips is the Union Pacific Professor of
Comparative Early Modern History at the University of Minnesota.

Richard Bulliett is Professor of history at Columbia University.

Simon Ditchfield is a Reader in the History Department
and Chair of the Board of Studies at the University of York, England.

W. George
Lovell is Professor of Geography at Queen’s University, Scotland who focuses on
human geography in Central and South America.

Ulrike
Strasser is Associate Professor of History and Affiliate Faculty in German,
Women’s Studies and Religious Studiesat the University of California, Irvine.

Audience

The Institute is ideal for historians who have
research interests or teaching responsibilities in any geographic area within
the broad time frame from circa 1200 (Mongol expansion) to circa 1900 (high
point of European imperialism) who either teach some aspect of world history or
have an interest in creating courses on global, comparative themes. All social
science and humanities faculty who have demonstrable teaching interests and
responsibilities at the college or university level within the thematic
framework of the Institute are encouraged to apply. We will also reserve three
slots for advanced (ABD) graduate students.

Assignments

At least a month before the start of the Institute, we
will send out all reading materials to give everyone an opportunity to begin
preparing themselves. All Scholars are expected to have read all relevant
materials before a particular session.

Academic
Resources

Pius XII Memorial Library, with approximately 1.5
million volumes and over 9,500 journals, has a substantial collection to
support your independent research in the Institute. In addition, the Knights of
Columbus Vatican Film Library, located in Pius Library, is an outstanding
research collection for medieval and Renaissance manuscript studies that houses
more than 37,000 microfilmed manuscripts from the Biblioteca Apostolica
Vaticana.

Stipend

NEH Summer Scholars receive a stipend of $3,300 to
help cover travel and living expenses and the cost of housing. The first check
in the amount of $1,650 will be disbursed the first week of the Institute and
the second check will be disbursed halfway through the Institute. Please
note that stipends may have tax consequences.

Successful applicants will be notified of their
selection on Monday, April 1, 2013.
You need to let us know where you will be on this date if it is different from
the contact information you give on your application.

For information on eligibility, instructions for
applying to the Institute, and housing accommodations, see the relevant
sections of this website.